Creation began on 05-04-22

Creation ended on 05-08-22

Neon Genesis Evangelion

A New Cause: The Rights of All Life

A/N: What would the Restorative Horseman of Death say to what people are doing to overturn a right that affords women their freedom to choose what happens to them?

Life. It was always considered a miracle in all of existence…but it was also a miraculous mystery due to nobody alive having any absolute understanding to it. But even those that walk the line of life and death were no closer to knowing its meaning beyond what they knew when they were alive. Or, in the case of the current Restorative Horseman of Death, who walked the earthly coil of a post-Second Impact world in the guise of the late Shinji Ikari, the infamous serial killer that died at the age of fourteen after murdering his father, could only understand life through his own experiences with those of the mortal plane. Even he found himself disturbed by what like-minded people chose to do when other people made decisions regarding their own lives whenever something happened to them.

Even in a world maimed by the people with delusions of divinity, he thought as he stood atop a building roof in an American city that hadn't been cleared out by the Angels or the horsemen like himself, looking down at some people protesting outside a clinic that people were either trying to get inside for an appointment or to seek aid…or to cause trouble, people with absolutely no clue to the horror that awaits them unless the planet is healed of its wounds still try to make a fuss over the most minor of issues that should be left alone if it doesn't pertain to them.

In this current case, Death, the Endgame was on the lookout for any criminals or deviants that hid among the pro-lifers that tried to force their views on people that sought help from clinics like this one that offered solutions that offended them in ways that made them want to act out. Even if some viewed abortion as a form of murder, Death knew better than they did; his actions ever since that night in Nagoya, Japan still left ripples in both himself and the rest of the world when his path of vengeance for the innocent caused an uptick in some criminal activities while decreasing the lesser acts of crime. Acts of terrorism, human trafficking, domestic abuse, even kidnapping had either increased or decreased in various places in other parts of the world. But this ridiculous protest that was just another in a list of them that targeted any medical center that offered women their rights to have an abortion was just a waste of everyone's time that could've been directed towards other issues, such as illegal garbage dumping or the creation and distribution of ghost guns.

"Death," he heard the voice of Conquest behind him and turned to face the Poison Master, just as he removed his hood from his face, showing his scarred visage. "I take it that you don't share the views of these protesters down there speaking their minds?"

"I believe that pro-life views are nothing more than an illusion created by men and women that want to believe that they're saving the human race…but what exactly are they saving it for?" He questions. "Life is sacred, true, but it doesn't begin at conception. The body, maybe, but not the soul. The soul will never join the body until the first breath is taken. And the women? I think back to that night I was in Nagoya, and how I was disgusted by the men I chose to send to Hell. Do these people that think they're saving the world by denying women their right to decide what becomes of them when new life is forced upon them? I've seen this befall many women from the twisted memories of my victims…and people like this, even if they're not criminals or unforgivable scum, they're no better than the men and women that go to Hell for their sins that will weigh them down eternally. And Famine, who he used to be before he ended up in Limbo, he was a reminder to someone that had him that life has its dark stains that become like tattoos you can't get rid of…even if you tried to erase their existence. You let people like these followers of a half-hearted belief persist like a weed to fester in a garden of purity that deserves to be left alone, untainted and free, and you get more weeds that are no different from rats or strays: Unwanted, unloved, a waste of space…and a waste of flesh."

Conquest could see that this Death, unlike his predecessor, was more proactive in his way of thinking towards mortals and their daily actions. Even though some of his more-spoken thoughts negative, there was no denying his awareness of how people were when it came to these details regarding life's pros and cons. Among the cons of life, however, was how life had developed the indecent tendency to become a germinating thorn in the side of women by men that chose to cross the morality line and violate them in their own pursuit of self-gratification or to tarnish and humiliate them. But he didn't want to believe this new Death had a perception of the world of mortality mired in the constraints of light and darkness, just a view of right and wrong like others that developed a new sense of clarity over time.

As he looked down at the people below, both horsemen witnessed a woman getting out of a dark blue Toyota vehicle with a man, presumably a spouse or friend, and another man with a picket sign that read, "CHOOSE LIFE, NOT DEATH!" approached the woman, causing her to hit him to keep him away from her and the guy she was with.

"Abortion is murder! Don't commit murder!" They heard the protester say to them. "Do the right thing! Don't kill a life!"

Then, Death jumped off the roof, heading towards the clinic parking lot.

Conquest could've joined him, but chose to observe what Death might do as he landed on the ground of the lot, surprising the protesters and medical security guards that arrived to mitigate the violence.

"You people need to step away," he heard Death say to them.

"Please, we're not doing anything wrong," the man accompanying the woman responded.

"I don't mean you two," Death corrected, looking at the guy with the sign, who didn't seem intimidated. "I mean the protesters. They need to step away."

"Kid, this is a peaceful demonstration," he told Death, who wasn't fazed. "We're allowed to exercise our right to speak the truth. What these people at this slaughterhouse are doing is against God's plan."

"Do I look like I even care what your deity's plan is? Do I look like I'm concerned with what these two are here to do?"

"They're trying to kill an innocent life," another woman proclaimed. "Abortion is murder!"

"If they wanted to kill someone, I'd kill them either before or after the crime was committed," Death responded, and Conquest could see the couple were bothered by this revelation. "However, I can't see them as murderers. You call a woman's right to have an abortion a crime of murder. You call it an act against your god's so-called plan. You call a medical center like this one a slaughterhouse only because you choose to view what they do here as an abomination. But do you know what the real abomination is? Do you know who the real murderers are? Other than the walking damned in front of you?"

Conquest could see this was getting philosophical right now and beliefs were going to clash, but still, he listened in on this.

"I have ended the so-called lives of the unborn of women that had no say in their conception," Death revealed, "but only because the souls of those women were against having those lives forced upon them by men that were depraved and deserving of the inescapable fate I dealt each of them, and do you know how easy it is to get rid of undesired lives before the first breath is taken? It's like turning the other cheek in the midst of a crisis when there are other people present, like this bystander effect; there's always someone else that might do something about it, so why should I bother to care? And what is all this talk about pro-life, anyway? You people that are anti-abortion and like to gang up on those that have done nothing but a civil service to those in need of their solutions, do you ever stop to realize that your so-called concern for the unborn seems to end right after the first breath is taken? You just want those kids to be born, and after that, you could care less for them, the same as I would…unless they cross the line between guilty and innocent…years later…and I may be around years later, being the same person that I've been since I became the Horseman of Death: Disgusted by what people do to each other when they decide to cast aside their innocence."

"So, you think it's wrong to be pro-life?" One of the female protesters asked him.

"I think it's wrong for any of you to think it's perfectly fine for a woman or girl to have a child that she didn't desire, that she can't bear the thought of having. You hear of a teen getting pregnant as a result of rape, you try to get her to have the kid because you think it's part of your deity's plan for everyone else…but it's not. I find out about it, I peer into the soul of the girl. Her soul will tell me what her heart often can't. If she wants the kid, I leave her alone. If she doesn't, I resolve the matter with my kama sickle…and she recovers later after puking up blood and guts, the undesired life removed from her body, never to fester like a parasite."

"So, you'd give abortions to those seeking to end their pregnancies?" Another male protester questioned Death.

"Only if they sought to avoid having their rapist's child or children," he answered, "and only those that don't desire to have children until they're ready. Still, a woman's body, anyone's body, for that matter, should be their own business and not the business of anyone that thinks they know better when they don't know anything about the person. Do you know anything about this woman (he points to the woman that was with the man)? Do you know who she is, why she's even here? Do you? Do you?!"

"It's still murder," said someone in the background of the protesters. "These clinics should be shutdown! Life has to be protected!"

Conquest saw Death unsheathe his kama sickle in front of them, causing the people to back away. If he was going to kill the person that insisted on acting out, he was within all authority to lay waste to their lives, but as he continued to gaze down upon them, he saw something different.

-x-

Death wasn't such a fan of life that he would just view those who were anti-abortion or were against ending a life that put a risk on the people forced to carry them. While he did devote his time to preserving innocent life, that word was loosely used with people; he knew the difference between a sinner, those that chose to commits acts of degradation against otherwise good people that didn't deserve it at all…and people that simply preached about something they felt was wrong and didn't do anything further about what other people that didn't agree with them did that put them on opposing sides. And these people were just preaching, running their mouths about something they believed in that others didn't.

"I shall ask you a question, lady," he turned to the woman with his weapon at his right side. "All I expect is your honesty. Why are you here? Why did you come here today?"

"My former boss at my last job… Two months ago, he cornered me in his office and raped me," she explained to him. "I don't want his baby. I don't want to have kids for at least five years. The world is out of order and everyone is out of sorts right now. Also, I have a blood clotting condition; if something were to go wrong, I could bleed out and die."

"Do you swear that this is the honest truth?"

"I swear. I swear to God…"

"Swear to me."

"I swear to you. It's the truth."

The blade of his sickle gave off a ringing sound, and Death took two steps back.

"Then you should go get that germinating sin removed," he told her, something the protesters found sickening as the pair walked away.

"What are you, pro-choice?" The sign holder asked him.

"Pro-choice? Pro-choice, pro-life, pro-whatever the Hell you people choose to refer or define something you're either for or against. Life doesn't truly exist for people until the first breath is taken. And as I said before, if people don't want children that are being forced upon them because of others that have awful intentions, then they are within their rights to end the undesired life that festers within their bodies."

"You know, Roe v. Wade will get overturned some day!" Death heard a woman in the background of the protesters, expressing their beliefs.

"And even if that does become a truth, it won't change the fact that some people will still seek aid in what they don't want to have befall them," Death responded. "Tell me, if you people are so concerned for the continuation of life, why don't you go and have children yourself? Why force other women that don't want to have children to have children, knowing that they are either unprepared, unequipped or at risk of dying? And your concerns over life seem to end right after birth. You just want those kids to take their first breath of life, but after that, you don't really give a damn what becomes of them. So, yeah, why don't you go have children if you care so much for life?"

Death was making a valid point towards these people. Their concerns for life stopped right after the birth of many, many babies…and they didn't think twice about them at all. And if they were so concerned about life gradually ending, then they should be the ones having the children, not the people that don't want them yet or at all. Not to mention that, due to his accumulated victims' memories and knowledge expanding his own understanding of human behavior, Death, despite his developed preferences of protecting the innocent, was disgusted by the practice of these pro-life activists because, to him, it was no different from rape or child molestation, only it was being committed on a larger scale that had to do with the recent years of the natural birth rate declining and barely returning to normal following Second Impact.

"…And you'd still wager that even if abortion clinics are shutdown, people will still seek abortions wherever they can be obtained?" A man in the group asked him.

"You can't force a woman to have a baby if she doesn't want one yet or at all," he responded. "If you and your wife or girlfriend want a baby, that's on you. If any of you protesters want kids, that's on you. But if there are those that don't want kids, it's not your place to disagree with them just because you think what they're doing is wrong. It'd be comparable to wanting to know what kind of person your babysitter is or who your neighbors are if you think there's something about them that you feel sets them apart from you. You just want to be in their business and have them be more like yourselves if they believe in things you're against."

Then, like something out of the supernatural, wings of black feathers appeared behind the Grim Reaper of Heaven, and he took off.

"Leave the people that don't want to have children yet or at all alone," he told the protesters. "Concern yourselves with only yourselves. I don't want to have to come back and spill blood unnecessarily unless it's the blood of kidnappers and rapists."

-x-

"…Then…wouldn't that imply that Death, or at least this incarnation of Death," went the Restorative Horseman of War to the Primordial Earth Goddess, Mother Gaia, during a break in the meadow of the latter's island domain, "is pro-choice when it comes to ending undesired pregnancies in rape victims?"

"It really depends upon your interpretation of what Death thinks is right and what could be that makes you think he's pro-choice, since it's likely he's the opposite of pro-life," the earthly woman responded to the knight as they sat on the grass by the stream. "Each of you is different and develops further as a horseman based on who you were in the past and how you were brought up based on the culture of that specific time period."

"Except Death is… He doesn't seem to speak much on what is on his mind, and that's due to how he was confined to a cage and virtually left to degenerate over the years prior to his mortal death…and that hasn't changed much with his purgatory state."

"Oh, you'd be surprised at how each of you can change over time the more you get involved in what you do as a horseman," Gaia tells him. "And in this case, this incarnation of Death has the most to gain out of his interactions with people. The more he interacts with people, good and bad, the more he develops as a person in his own right, able to further his own decision-making abilities and express his own beliefs and opinions on many things."

"Like politics, democrats and republicans?" War questions.

"Yes. While none of these will matter to Death, as none of you horsemen are really into politics, he will have developed his own sense of right and wrong, what should be done and what shouldn't be done, whether other people agree or disagree. If he believes that you shouldn't force a woman to have a baby, whether it was conceived by accident or even through rape, then that is his belief, and he will, only if the woman wants nothing to do with it, end that small life to keep it from taking root. While some call it murder, it is not murder. One of the greatest solutions that humans created to resolve population control was the case of Roe v. Wade. When I first heard of it, it was something people needed at the time to have more freedom to decide what happens to their bodies. If you give control over a woman's body to a system that doesn't have all of their best interests at heart, it breeds disorder, distrust and disgust. Every woman, for better or worse, needs to be in control of their bodies, their fates, not have their lives dictated at every turn by a system comprised of men and women that don't believe in the freedom to let others decide what will be a part of their future and what won't be."

This made War think about what he had wanted to do after he was through with his service in his past life.

"There was a girl in my past that I was going to ask to marry me when she was a year older than I was at the time I went into service," he revealed to Gaia. "She wanted to be a knight, but suffered from an injury that limited her ability to run. It was often believed that any woman that couldn't fight was unworthy to be a knight. But to those in the service of the kingdom, any woman that was married was worthy of being the spouse of any knight. But that wasn't the reason I wanted to ask for her hand. I was smitten over her. But then…my mother betrayed everyone in the kingdom, including me, before I could even make my move, and then… All I have are empty dreams of what could've been…and won't be."

Mother Gaia could sympathize with War. She could sympathize with many people. Before Second Impact, there were many dreams filled with promise, relationships that held hopes for a new beginning. And she was just a mother to an orphan girl that had no past before they had met…and she was doing all that she could with the Restorative to restore the planet to its previous state, with all those innocent lives brought back to pick where they left off.

"I am sorry you were unable to fulfill a dream you had in your past," she apologized to him.

"Life is unpredictable. There's no denying that fact. The universe can surprise you with twists and turns that you don't expect to happen."

-x-

A man with no remorse for his victims had no right to continue drawing breath after ending the life of ten people within the course of ten years, so Death, the Endgame chose to end his life. His kama slicing through his chest, bypassing his flesh, muscles and bones, cutting the strings of his heart loose, then letting him drop to his knees as his soul descended into Hell. After he was dead, the horseman turned to face the man's would-be eleventh victim, a woman of mid-thirties, carrying a grocery bag of baby goods.

"Are you…alright?" He asked her.

"I was…just on my way to my sister's baby shower," she explained her reason for being out and about on the streets.

Death approached her and picked up her fallen bag.

"You're innocent, and therefore deserve to go on living until the end of your days," he told her, and then handed the bag over to her. "People like you deserve to live long and enjoy the greatness that comes with life. People like him, however, are disgraceful towards others that are innocent of any wrongdoing…and therefore don't deserve to live at all. He will suffer in Hell, longing for absolution that will never come. There is no redemption for most in Hell."

The woman wanted to walk away, but felt the need to ask him a question because of something she had done not so long ago.

"I…I had an abortion three months ago," she went. "Are you going to kill me for that?"

"Can you tell me why?" He responded.

"I'm not married, my last relationship was with a man that didn't last more than a year, and I'm not ready for a family until I've met the right man for me. Is that wrong of me?"

Death's face didn't show any emotion, but there was something in his eyes. Those empty, soulless eyes that probably spoke volumes of whatever was necessary to say to those in the way.

"An unborn life isn't a true life until the first breath is taken," he told her. "Abortion isn't murder, so is therefore not a sin to me. You've done nothing wrong."

"I'm sorry. I thought you were like a pro-lifer."

"Pro-life is a waste of my time because it is just a practice preached by men and women that don't like it when other women choose to get abortions when they believe it's against the will of whatever deities they want to believe in because it's how they grew up learning. Those that know the truth, however, are the ones that don't waste time chasing after a hollow belief. When you're truly ready to embrace motherhood of your own volition, I do hope that you will not take such a blessing for granted. There are two types of women that follow the path of motherhood; those that have every right to be called mothers…and those that don't deserve to be mothers."

"Did you…meet anyone like that? Someone that…didn't deserve to be a mother?"

It was that question, that one question…that forced Death, the Endgame…to think back to his mortal life as Shinji Ikari, a victim of all things associated to the two people that failed him. The absent loser father that was Gendo Rokubungi-Ikari, condemned to serve Hell for the time being as his unholy counterpart…and the false mother that was Yui Ikari, who Shinji stabbed in the stomach with a machete and left for dead because he was more upset with his father than he had ever been with her. Whatever light that existed between the three of them had been snuffed out long ago, and the son they had left alone…had his heart ripped out by people that could care less about him, forcing him to become cold and uncaring towards them and the rest of the world he was merely a guest in because he had only one path left open to him. They had destroyed whatever life he had, so neither he, they or anyone else that stood in the way of revenge towards the ties of blood…were not entitled to a life at all.

"Who I used to be met such a woman," he finally answered. "She abandoned him to play a false deity made by impure hands that defy natural existence…and lost any right to be his mother when she made a choice to come back, thinking he would give up his vengeance towards his father after he made everyone else that hurt him pay with their lives. She took what she was blessed with for granted…and will never be blessed with it again, no matter what she does. She used to be a mother…and now she's nobody's mother. And yet his soul, shackled within me, burns with the resentment he still carries for her. There are only two ways that he will be free of her; either he obtains redemption for his soul, absolved of his sins and given a new slate from which to forge a new path…or I finish what he started…and kill her for her sins, putting an end to the horrible story that was their family that never was."

Then, he left her alone. That was his belief. That was how he chose to view women that went down the path of motherhood, as either women that had every right to call themselves mothers…and women that didn't deserve to be mothers. And it was because of this belief, because of how it developed over the time he was the Restorative Horseman of Death, that aided in his belief that abortion was not a crime, was not a sin, and therefore not something that people needed to waste their time on preaching. Even if this American law was ever challenged to the point of being undone, he wouldn't be swayed to believe that abortion was wrong…because life didn't exist until the first breath was taken.

Even now, in the night, in the dark, as he could hear the cries of many, many lives that did take their first breath, that were wanted by the people that were blessed with their presence, he could only hope that the people that actually wanted to be mothers would do everything to honor their children by doing right by them. And he hoped that once his duty to the Restorative was fulfilled and the planet was restored to its previous state of being, there would be an actual future for those children that were allowed to take their first breath of life.

Life is only a blessing when life is truly wanted by those that choose to embrace it, he thought.

Pro-life and pro-choice are just a matter of what we choose to believe in, whether others agree with us or not, and each choice made has to be up to you and you alone

A/N: This is my response to the threat of the potential overturn of Roe v. Wade. I have no problem with abortion, as it's every woman's right if they are not ready for children, and we have no right to take their rights away from them like we know better than they do…and most often, we don't know squat.